When to prune apple trees?
- Botanical name
- Malus domestica
- Family
- Rosaceae
Apple trees are pruned from January to March. They are planted from October to March. They are harvested from August to October.
Apple trees are woody perennials. The edible part is the fruit.
Apple trees through the year
- pruning
- planting
- harvest
In short
Growing conditions
Pests and diseases
Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.
Aphids
pest- Signs
- Colonies of small aphids sit on the shoot tips and the underside of the leaves. The leaf curls and puckers, and sticky honeydew is left on everything below. The viruses they carry are more dangerous than the feeding itself.
- Prevention
- Go easy on nitrogen, because soft sappy growth is what aphids are looking for. Encourage the predators (ladybirds, lacewings, parasitic wasps). Use a reflective mulch, which puts them off settling, and a strong jet of water to knock the colony off the tips.
Apple scab
disease- Signs
- On the leaves there are olive green velvety blotches that darken later. On the fruit there are brown to black scabby patches. As the fruit swells, the skin beside a scab cannot follow and the fruit splits.
- Prevention
- The fungus overwinters on fallen leaves and infected shoots, so cleared leaves are the main measure: rake up and carry away every fallen leaf and fruit, and cut out affected shoots. A resistant variety is a difference that shows every year.
- What to do
- For the home garden there is nothing for a tree whose fruit is eaten. What is left is hygiene and the choice of variety.
Brown rot (monilia)
disease- Signs
- A brown rot spreading across the fruit, with light brown cushions of spores on it, often in concentric rings. The fruit drops or stays on the branch as a dried mummy.
- Prevention
- The fungus overwinters in mummified fruit and in cankered wounds in the bark, so collect and remove every rotten and mummified fruit and cut out affected twigs. The infection enters through a wound, so a net against birds takes away the main door. In a cluster it passes from one fruit to the fruit it touches.
- What to do
- For the home garden there are no fungicides against brown rot. What is left is picking off and removing the mummies as they appear and choosing less susceptible varieties.
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Related plants
The plants below are in the same botanical family (Rosaceae).
Sources about the plant: ASPCA Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants, Clemson Cooperative Extension, GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, Iowa State University Extension, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Royal Horticultural Society, University of Maryland Extension, Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 28 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: EPPO Global Database, University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, Utah State University Extension.